a media term for bboying.
Bboying is a style of dance originated in the early 1970s in New York city and was mass published to the whole world in the movie "Flashdance" in 1983 which featured New York's hip-hop scene.

also known as b-boying, the main aspect of the dance element of hip-hop, ahead of popping, locking, crumping etc. A dance created by afro-americans that evolved from popping and locking, which involves style, smoothness, strength and self-control. There are 2 aspects, style which is dependant on your own personal dancing style, consisting of toprock, footwork,, the way you transition moves and of course random disses towards opponents during battle. Power consists of the moves the public wants to see, spinning on heads, windmills, hopping around on one arm such as the hand hop or jackhammer etc. Current pioneers and present time legends include Kujo from the USA and B-boy Junior from France.

*starts off with a toprock which is immensely lame, goes for a sweep but makes a poor landing, reaks out into basic footwork including 6 and 4 step, before attempting a swipe on falling on ass* WOOO! I'M GOOD! OK, maybe I need some practice, dammit....

the term "breakdancing" or 'breakdancer' was coined by the media in the late 80's as the dance became highly commercialised from more people getting involved in the hip-hop scene.

b-boys were getting alot of exposure in movies, commercials and were often seen dancing on the streets. People were amazed by the breath-taking maneuvers that a breaker would preform eg. flips, headspins, backspins, windmills, flares etc...

Very soon the public wanted to do 'them cool tricks that spin and stuff' to please the crowd. Therefor only learning the 'power' moves that a b-boy preforms and not learning the fundamentals of b-boying such as toprock, footwork and freezes.

breakdancers are usually looked down apon on the b-boying community as true b-boys break because they love dancing not to gain attention from a crowd.

"Yo! lets go and learn some of those cool spins that we saw on that RUN DMC clip! Yo! i be like the illest at breakdancing and pull all the hoes and shiznit!"

"In 1975 on a hot summer July, while Up Rocking with some members of TBB Graffiti Artists a simple Up Rocking move turned into a falling mistake by a kid named TE-TE Rock (not the later TE-TE Rock) who fell to the ground and made a swift move that changed the Up Rocking dance art throughout the world. This dance art became known as Break Dancing since we jokingly called it breaking your ass on the concrete. But the better name for it is actually "Rocking" since it originated from Up Rock to start with." Written by Batch TBB

Break dancing is the modern commercial term for Rocking and not all Break dancers are Bboys.